ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The New York Foundation for the Arts, Café Royal Cultural Foundation, I-Park Foundation, and Salty Quill Writers’ Retreat made the writing of this book possible with gifts of money and time and space.

So much gratitude to my agent, David Godwin, and Lisette Verhagen for championing this book before it was a book.

At Catapult, Megha Majumdar’s brilliant vision gave this book shape and momentum. Laura Gonzalez’s faith in this book was so infectious it infected even me. Summer Farah brought tough questions and fire emojis, and Alicia Kroell took it all to the finishing line with infinite patience. My thanks also to the production team, led by Wah-Ming Chang.

Arpita Das, Rollo Romig, Sebene Selassie, and Raksha Vasudevan read drafts and gave freely of their fierce intelligence and critical insights. This book has also benefited greatly from conversations with Rajesh Chavda, Sina Fabian, Minal Hajratwala, Ana Laura Martinez, Kalathmika Natarajan, Enrique Salmon, Kate Sekules, Steven Tagle, Robert Young, and Paul Zacharia. Thanks also to Fatemeh Keshavarz, who graciously permitted me to use her translation of the opening lines of The Mathnawi.

Knowing that Zarine Habeeb and Liz Romig are tapping their fingers waiting to read this book has meant so much to me. Thank you, sisters, for being the gentlest of gentle readers. All my heart to my favorite aisle and middle seat passengers, Rollo Romig and Sophya Habib Romig.